


Touch

by KatieComma



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pre-Slash, Unrequited Love, macdalton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 18:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16270076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieComma/pseuds/KatieComma
Summary: Coda to Mardi Gras Beads + Chair (214)With his hands bandaged from pulling Jack out of the fire (literally), Mac realizes just how important his sense of touch is to him. And just how important Jack is to him too.





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lavendersblues (lonely_lovebird)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonely_lovebird/gifts).



> Based on a prompt from lavendersblues for her birthday!!! Happy birthday!!!! Sorry it's a few days late.
> 
> Thank you N1ghtshade for beta reading!!!

Pain didn’t matter. Jack was all that mattered. 

From the moment Mac reached into the flames the searing pain lit up his fingertips, but he didn’t care. Because moments before, Jack had cried out in pain, calling Mac’s name and all that mattered was making sure those weren’t the last words that ever left Jack’s mouth. That room contained a dozen things Mac could have used to save his partner, but his brain skipped over all the tools at hand and repeated over and over: get him out, get him out. So he did.

Heedless of the burns on his hands, Mac pulled Jack to his feet out of the wreckage of the smouldering coffin, palms screaming at him. Flames still licked at Jack’s coat, and Mac ignored the messages his nerve endings were sending to his brain and patted frantically at the fire until it was gone. Until Jack was safe.

Then the pain caught up with him and his hands curled up instinctively trying to protect themselves. Mac collapsed sideways, his vision narrowing. Conversation passed between him and Jack but he was barely there for it; the words moving straight from his brain to his mouth while the rest of him processed what felt like his skin peeling away from flesh and bone. Even the cool air across his hands felt like sandpaper ripping into them.

In that moment Mac watched Jack gratefully breathe in fresh air and knew it was the right time. His head cleared and the adrenaline that suddenly rushed through him dulled the pain. How many times had he almost lost Jack? Realized that he’d almost lost his partner without ever admitting how he felt? Each and every time, Mac told himself he would finally tell Jack his feelings, finally admit aloud what had been eating away at him for longer than he could remember. But it never seemed like the right time, and he always resolved to say something the next day. And tomorrow would become next week would become an indeterminate later.

But Mac watched Jack breathing deep the air he might have never breathed again, and Mac let his adrenaline take charge. He put everything he was into those words, trying to make them swell with all the feelings he’d harboured for too long. “I love you Jack.”

Jack’s face sobered, and he looked deep into Mac’s eyes. “Love you too bro,” he said, breaking his seriousness for a smile that erupted into laughter. “I’m alive!” He called out to the roof like a howling wolf.

And that was it. The moment had passed, and Jack hadn’t read into it the way Mac had hoped. It had become a bro moment between them, and as Mac’s excitement flagged, the pain returned and he almost fell to the floor with the force as it washed over him.

 

 

Mac had never thought much about his hands until EMS started wrapping them in gauze and he realized he wouldn’t be able to use them. He hadn’t considered just how beautiful the sensation of touch was until all he could feel was the sterile cotton bandages that had turned his hands into mittens. 

At first Mac had thought he looked foolish, and laughed along with Jack about it. But in the space of ten minutes he grew frustrated and wanted to tear the bandages from his aching hands. So much of what he did, who he was, required his hands, and his fingers already itched to tinker. He felt blind or deaf.

Sitting in the back of the ambulance next to Jack, Mac let himself relax against the comforting warmth of his partner. It eased the feeling of helplessness that was already starting to consume him at the temporary loss of his hands. Jack’s warmth that had been there with him through so much: Helping him cope in Afghanistan, getting him through the loss and betrayal of Nikki, comforting him on lonely days when he longed for family and felt alone in the world. Mac had come to realize that if he had Jack nothing else mattered, and he’d started to long for that warmth when nothing was wrong at all.

Matty was still off dealing with the local authorities. Mac and Jack were alone. Another moment to make himself understood.

Jack asked what Mac had cooked up to save him.

“Drove that Cadillac through the building and then I pulled you out with my bare hands,” Mac admitted. Here it was, he was going to make himself clear this time.

“Sounds like I’m rubbing off on you,” Jack joked, “what’dya run outta paperclips and bubblegum or somethin’?”

“Yup. Something like that,” Mac choked out nervously, wishing that he had something to fiddle with that would distract him.

Jack’s eyes on him were serious and intense. “Thanks man,” he said, holding out his hand for a fist bump.

Mac shook his head and held up his wrapped hands.

“Oh right,” Jack said, pulling his hand back.

This was it. 

The moment. 

Mac took a deep breath, the words bubbling up.

Matty walked up just in time for him to stop the freight train of emotion he almost let out of his mouth.

“Cute mittens blondie,” she said with a smile.

As his heartbeat began to subside, he listened to Matty talk about the death of Jack’s alias, Duke Jacoby.

And then the shot to his heart: Jack asked about his fake wife, Dixie. Asked about her with feeling in his voice, like he cared what happened to her. To this woman he’d met only a day before. A woman who didn’t mean anything to him, but Mac knew that tone in his voice. It was the same way he talked about Sarah, or Diane; with longing and emotion that he tried to hide behind his easy charm.

Mac wanted to scream and cry, instead he clenched his jaw and pushed down all of those emotions, deep as they could go. It only made it worse when Jack shifted to lean against him and the warmth that he put out like a furnace, that comforting heat that made Mac feel at home, travelled through layers of clothing to flush his skin. Mac watched Dixie as they took her cuffs off, and wondered what it was that made this woman so intriguing and special to Jack after just one day; when he’d known Mac for almost eight years and that didn’t seem to be enough.

And then Matty twisted the knife: they were releasing her and giving her a job with the CIA. Mac looked at the woman incredulously. How was it that these people who did everything wrong got second chances and the attention of the people he cared about? What made them more deserving of these things than him?

Dixie wandered over and saccharinely thanked them, Jack eating up every single word with an idiot grin on his face.

Mac thought he might vomit. But instead he made an excuse to leave and took off as quickly as he could. He let his legs carry him out into the cemetery, weaving through headstones until he found a sturdy tree. He leaned against it and forced himself to take deep steadying breaths. He’d stuck his hands into a fire for Jack, and yet somehow this burned so much more. But he could wait. Jack wasn’t going anywhere. Mac had all the time in the world to talk to him. Maybe tomorrow.

 

 

As Jack let them into the house, touch was all Mac could think about. Standing behind Jack while he unlocked the door, Mac’s fingers craved the soft supple feel of Jack’s leather jacket, or the pleasant prickle of buzzed hair. Hell, he’d even take the cold metal doorknob turning under his palm. Instead the cotton gauze stifled his senses, tormenting him with the want to feel and hold.

The pain meds they gave him made his head fuzzy, and he was starting to feel tired in a way he’d never been. On the flight back from New Orleans he hadn’t been able to find a position to sleep in that didn’t bother his hands and jolt him awake. So, in addition to being full of fun drugs, he hadn’t slept in over twenty four hours.

“You alright Mac?” Jack asked, suddenly in his line of sight.

Mac was having trouble remembering exactly how he’d gotten to his house in the first place. Hadn’t they been in New Orleans? 

Mac shook his head. “It’s the meds,” he said, holding up his hands as though they were proof he was on drugs. “Just a little woozy. Maybe bed?” He was weaving on his feet.

Jack took his arm and led him back to his room. He’d helped an injured Mac home often enough to know exactly where everything was, grabbing a set of pyjamas from the correct dresser drawer the first time, no guessing. 

Mac continued to sway on his feet as the drugs coursed through his system, numbing his brain along with the pain. He reached up automatically to undo the buttons on his shirt and a dull throb shot through his fingers, reminding him that he couldn’t even remove his own clothes. A hiss escaped his lips.

“It’s all good man,” Jack said, stepping in close, “I got this.”

Mac was barely aware of what was happening as Jack popped the first two buttons of Mac’s shirt open, but as his hands got lower, the heat of his body so near, Mac felt his body flush and stepped back awkwardly.

Jack grabbed his arm to make sure he didn’t fall, and pulled Mac back to him. “Come on man,” he chided, “it’s not like it’s nothin’ I ain’t seen before.”

Thankfully, by the time Jack reached his belt and helped him step out of his pants, the drugs were dulling the rest of his body as well or Mac would have had some explaining to do. It was almost unbearable to be so close and want to reach out.

Jack helped Mac into his pyjamas and pulled the sheets back, all but herding Mac into bed like a protective sheepdog. Mac obeyed, crawling under the blankets and letting Jack pull them up to his chin before he retreated for the door.

Mac was fading, but he knew that somewhere along the way he’d decided he was going to tell Jack how he felt. Had that been yesterday? Or last week? How long had it been since they got back from New Orleans?

Jack was closing the door. Leaving. Soon it would be too late.

“Jack!” Mac called out, hopefully not too loud.

“Yeah man? What’s up?” Jack asked, peeking his head around the door.

“Stay,” he requested. All he could think about was Jack’s warmth close to him in his bed. Keeping him grounded. “It’s so cold in here.”

“You alright hoss?” Jack asked, closing the door and returning to Mac’s bedside. He put a hand to Mac’s forehead. “You feel ok.”

“Please,” Mac said sleepily.

“Yeah, alright, alright,” Jack said. He dropped his boots on the floor and climbed into bed next to Mac, laying on his back. It wasn’t unusual. They’d slept next to each other before. They’d even cuddled for warmth in Afghanistan.

Mac immediately snuggled himself under Jack’s arm, against his side, and put a bandaged hand over his chest. There it was. That warmth, soothing away everything from the inside out. And the smell of Jack; as he breathed in it overtook his senses and he shuddered a little. This was the steady force he needed in his life. The one thing that could never go away. Mac craved the feel of Jack’s worn shirt under his fingertips: soft like silk with years of washing. His fingers twitched at the intention but remained firmly wrapped up. Mac settled for nuzzling his face against the fabric.

He was ready to say what he wanted to say. What he needed to say. But the words got mixed up in his brain, like someone shaking away the image on an Etch A Sketch. They faded away until only the barest sentiment was left.

“I love you Jack,” he murmured as his body and brain, combined with Jack’s warmth, continued to pull him down toward sleep. “Love you.”

“I know Mac,” Jack said softly, a hand coming up to tangle in Mac’s hair. “I love you too.”


End file.
